He continued: “A general malaise has now set in amongst the British public. People are feeling numb. And with numbness comes complacency. People don’t feel they have a voice anymore. The most dangerous thing is that they have stopped fighting for what they believe in. They have given up the chase. We need to explode all the shit once more.”

not sure burning punk artefacts is quite the way to do it. just seems like a way to fight the inevitable. punk isnt the first rebellious music to get co-opted. wont be the last. might as well go along with it and burn something that the establishment actually cares about more deeply.

then again, this does seem deeply nihilistic which i suppose is punk.

droid

16-03-2016, 04:48 PM

Sell it and give it to cancer research or the homeless or underprivileged musicians or something. Make a positive gesture.

benjybars

16-03-2016, 04:57 PM

I first read this as 'John Le Carré' to burn punk memoribilia..

would definitely like to see that.

Woebot

16-03-2016, 05:07 PM

I first read this as 'John Le Carré' to burn punk memoribilia..

would definitely like to see that.

lol :p

Woebot

16-03-2016, 05:08 PM

Sell it and give it to cancer research or the homeless or underprivileged musicians or something. Make a positive gesture.

he could always give it to you droid!

droid

16-03-2016, 05:10 PM

I could spin £5m into at least £10m worth of nihilism.

CrowleyHead

16-03-2016, 11:58 PM

Sounds fake.

sufi

17-03-2016, 09:23 AM

I wonder if we could get together some of our own memorabilia to burn, as a meet up sounds like a great plan, but November is a long time to wait...

it does depress me a bit (just like the klf depressed me) but i still think it's a pretty amazing and surely very timely gesture. really surprised at the wholly negative reaction here! :confused:

i was thinking through its ramifications.

whats weird is that both "rock'n'roll swindle" dad and "haute couture" mum were very much about the profit motive. they wanted to make money.

so where is this coming from? presumably greil marcus and his encoding of punk as dada nihilistic gesture is partly responsible. so that actually makes the gesture a result of the retro-critical post-rationalisation of punk. a reaction in tune with voodoo capital.

also, tee hee, one of the main results will be that the net value of existing punk memorabilia will be dramatically increased! good news for asset collectors! :D

i like corré though. agent provocateur make delightful undies and if this promotes that then good for him. i hope they're not really worth 5m!!!

CrowleyHead

17-03-2016, 12:42 PM

I'd argue that there's a broader gesture to maintain some sort of relevance by punks to their hold on the cultural narrative of 'voice of the voiceless'. Punk is now overpriced goods in any way, be it the 'sloppy/raw voice' narrative of struggle-core indie rock groups in the US and UK, the damaged chic of high-fashion which has become a rote cliche... The voice of the working class; which working class, who's working class? What about what's beneath the working class?

There's no sincerity in anything a punk does to me, we've learned more and more with time that the only punk who stayed true till death is the one who died before he had to make any serious decisions. Its a world where we celebrate Pussy Riot who have no musical value or necessity for their 'expressive capability', we find continuous value in an archaic regime of 'alternative music' that's become as oppressive and malignant a canon as the old rock regime they tried to overthrow and with even MORE a sinister need to maintain their grips on a greater culture.

To burn Punk Memorbilia indicates their own value and significance by placing them in a spectacle. There are human lives treated with less regard in 2016. The fuck do I care about a jacket Joe Strummer pissed himself in one night?

rubberdingyrapids

17-03-2016, 01:34 PM

To burn Punk Memorbilia indicates their own value and significance by placing them in a spectacle.

its basically another stab at restoring punk's old punkiness. 'we can still do it!' though the only way he seems to think he can do it is by punk self destruction, which just seems like punk talking to itself, rather than trying to annihilate anything he feels is 'numbing' or 'silencing' people in the wider, *modern* culture, which is surely more relevant. the only people who will care or get some enjoyment our of this are old/ageing punks, grasping onto old gestures. outside of that, it wont remind anyone of what punk can achieve, because its such an incestuous idea. although, then again, maybe this is the most punk thing of all. less, kill your heroes, than kill yourself, etc.

i like the idea that if everyone burned all traces of punk (or other 'important' canons), it could start again, without the baggage of itself to contend with, but punk already is ossified. burning some old rags wont change that. it would be more interesting if he hacked into all the youtube/google servers and deleted all punk videos and imagery, etc etc, instantly eradicating its potential for influence.

Mr. Tea

17-03-2016, 02:50 PM

it would be more interesting if he hacked into all the youtube/google servers and deleted all punk videos and imagery, etc etc, instantly eradicating its potential for influence.

Nice idea. It makes me think of the final scene in Fight Club, with all the bank buildings being destroyed and all of America's financial records with them, except in place of the Pixies' 'Where Is My Mind?' on the soundtrack there'd be...I dunno, 'Gangnam Style' or something by Miley Cyrus instead.

baboon2004

21-03-2016, 01:02 AM

Its a world where we celebrate Pussy Riot who have no musical value or necessity for their 'expressive capability'

I agree with the rest of what you said, but I think you're picking on the wrong target here. on a musical level ok, but I don't understand the dismissiveness in a thread about the 'spirit of punk', since Pussy Riot are in reality 10x (100x?) more 'punk' and fearless than John Lydon will ever be, having shown dissent in a country where the consequences for this are far more dire than anything the old self-mythologiser would ever face.

Re John Corre - sounds like McLaren was a pretty shitty father to have - I'm sure this factors in to his feeling about the memorabilia, consciously or unconsciously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW3wBL757Jc I'm enjoying this - Shelley and Devoto seem great, and I swear I just saw Mark E Smith being enthusiastic

john eden

21-03-2016, 11:48 AM

"The Queen giving 2016, the year of punk, her official blessing is the most frightening thing I’ve ever heard." said the multi-millionaire.

Nothing to see here.

This, from a fellow Dissensus contributor is far far better than what some bloke who set up a company selling knickers has to say:

Joe Corre was at the centre
of a huge publicity stunt
this week for punk's 40th
anniversary. In front of a
crowd which seemed to consist
mainly of journalists, he
burned a collection of punk
memorabilia on a Thames barge.

It was breathlessly reported
around the world that the
collection was worth $5m...
$10m... some even say that
it was priceless!

But did anyone think to check?
Gossip has been circulating
all summer that the collection
he immolated – far from being
family heirlooms passed down
from Corre's parents, Malcolm
McLaren and Vivienne Westwood
– was actually bought in a job
lot a couple of years ago
from Nellee Hooper.

The cleverest thing about it?
Now that it's all gone up in
smoke, no-one will ever know...

Mr. Tea

02-12-2016, 12:43 PM

That would be genius, if true.

martin

05-12-2016, 02:11 PM

Pussy Riot are in reality 10x (100x?) more 'punk' and fearless than John Lydon will ever be, having shown dissent in a country where the consequences for this are far more dire than anything the old self-mythologiser would ever face.

I dunno, I'd call being attacked with a machete and pint glasses, having your flat turned over on a regular basis by the DS, having papers question whether you should be busted for treason and getting banged up in Dublin after being singled out for a kicking by off-duty cops pretty "dire circumstances" for a shy working class 19-year old to face.

The boat stunt would have been funnier if it'd coincided with the 'Brexit flotilla' furore in June

droid

05-12-2016, 02:28 PM

Also, according to his biography, his first job was on a building site, smacking hordes of rats with a shovel as his dad's digger excavated their nests.

baboon2004

05-12-2016, 03:01 PM

I dunno, I'd call being attacked with a machete and pint glasses, having your flat turned over on a regular basis by the DS, having papers question whether you should be busted for treason and getting banged up in Dublin after being singled out for a kicking by off-duty cops pretty "dire circumstances" for a shy working class 19-year old to face.

I'd agree that all that is fairly dire in the context of a state/states that is/are far less repressive and scary than Putin's Russia; not sure what your point is. My initial statement was comparative, to point out that diminishing what the members of Pussy Riot have gone through /risked just because their music isn't v good, is a bit silly really.

martin

05-12-2016, 03:11 PM

I'd agree that all that is fairly dire in the context of a state/states that is/are far less repressive and scary than Putin's Russia; not sure what your point is. My initial statement was comparative, to point out that diminishing what the members of Pussy Riot have gone through /risked just because their music isn't v good, is a bit silly really.

Yeah I agree with you. I just think it's easy to write Lydon off as a kind of self-important McLaren Mk II now he's fat, old and loaded, while forgetting how horrendous '70s Britain was for dissenters.